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Alexandria Ingham is a professional writer. She predominately ghost-writes in various niches, including fitness, finance and technology Everything is fully researched and well-written. Under her own name, she writes in the technology, business, history and weight loss niches

Should You Specialize or Generalize as a Writer for Hire?

You may have heard that when you become a writer for hire, you need to specialize in the type of content you offer. It will be easier to find higher paying clients if you focus on a specific niche for your writing.

After all, I’ve written time and time again that for a blog you need to find a niche if you want to build it and be able to make money with it successfully.

So, don’t the two go hand in hand? If you need to create a niche blog doesn’t that mean you need to specialize on a topic to be a writer for hire?

I’m about to surprise you with my honest thoughts on the subject here.

No, the two definitely don’t go hand in hand. This is going to take a few blog posts to explain in full. I’ll need to go into the details of my business and how I make money writing online, but I’ve never specialized for private clients. I’ve only ever specialized on my blog and with residual income. I’ve made plenty of money and gained good paying clients by being a generalized writer for hire.

Wait, so why do I say you need a niche blog?

Because blogging and being a writer for hire are two different things. Well, they’re two different ways to make money online.

When you blog, you’re attracting an audience to make residual income. You don’t get paid instantly to post topics on your blog. You have to find a way to build an interest in your blog, and the best way to do that is to stick to a niche.

When one person finds content that they like and speaks to them, they will look at the rest of your blog. If you then go onto a completely different topic that they have no interest in, they’ll think you can’t offer everything you need.

By sticking to a niche, you’ll find it easier to build your audience for that particular blog. You’ll find it easier to market towards that audience and offer products that they will actually be interested in.

So, why is being a writer for hire different?

This is very simple really: you’re not writing for your own audience. You’re writing for someone else’s; helping them build their target audience and brand. You focus on something that is right for their audience, and are paid a set fee for that.

Sure, you can specialize into a certain niche. If you love blogging about weight loss, fitness, and health, you could focus on specializing in that niche as a writer for hire. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what about other interests you may have? What about other type of content you may want to write.

What if you just narrow your niche so much that you can’t find the perfect clients; those willing to take you on because there are already so many other writers specializing in that niche?

Generalizing when writing for hire means that you can keep your options open. You’ll find it easier to get new clients, because you’re not restricting yourself.

Even the best writers out there will recommend some generalization, but encourage you to find a way to specialize as a general writer for hire. How do you do that? You specialize for a location, a country, or even a type of business instead.

For example, I specialized as a local writer for hire when living in Glasgow, and it did help me get local clients. I was able to meet with them face to face and work through content that way. The companies were searching for Glasgow writers or UK writers, because they knew they would get someone who understood the spelling and grammar rules for their local people.

That didn’t stop me getting clients from around the world, either. It just helped me get targeted people to my website looking for a specific type of writer, without narrowing my niche too much.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll look more into this specializing vs. generalizing as a writer for hire topic. I’ll share what I do to help build my client base and give you an insight into why specializing may not be as beneficial as you may think.

That doesn’t mean I think you should have generalized blogs everywhere. One is enough, with the rest being niche focused to help build your residual income. Right now, I’m specifically talking about becoming a writer for hire and making money that way.

If you want to know more before I managed to get the blog posts out, I’m available as a freelance writing mentor. I’ll be able to help you decide on your next steps to become a freelance writer for hire.

Alexandria Ingham is a professional writer. She predominately ghost-writes in various niches, including fitness, finance and technology Everything is fully researched and well-written. Under her own name, she writes in the technology, business, history and weight loss niches

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